"Pittsburgh, 1995. The son of a black father he's never known, and a white mother he sometimes wishes he didn't, twenty-two year-old Bobby Saraceno has passed for white his entire life. Raised by his bigoted maternal grandfather, Bobby has hidden the truth about his identity from everyone, even his best friend and fellow comic-book geek, Aaron, who has just returned home from prison a newly radicalized white supremacist. Bobby's disparate worlds crash...

"Amy Chua's debut novel, The Golden Gate, is a sweeping, evocative, and compelling historical thriller that paints a vibrant portrait of a California buffeted by the turbulent crosswinds of a world at war and a society about to undergo massive change. In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs....

As the War for Independence wore on into the 1780s, unrest ruled the Carolinas. Settlers who had cleared the land after the Cherokees withdrew were being mustered for battle as British forces pillaged their hard-won farms. Robert Morgan's stunning novel tells a story of two people caught in the chaos raging in the wilderness.
After sixteen-year-old Josie Summers murders her abusive stepfather, she runs away from home disguised as a boy. Lost in...

"The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and...

Beautiful Julia Hoffman has always lived a carefree life. When she discovers that the man she's had her eye on thinks she's spoiled, she's determined to prove him wrong. She defies her family and becomes a Union nurse, spending her days helping suffering soldiers get well--and finding healing for her own heart.

Luna--or depending on who's asking, Rose--is the white-passing daughter of an immigrant mother who has seen what happens to people from her culture. This world is prejudicial, and she must hide her identity in pursuit of owning an illegal jazz club. Using her cunning powers, Rose negotiates with dangerous criminals as she climbs up Kansas City's bootlegging ladder. Luna, however, runs the risk of losing everything if the crooked city councilmen and...

"Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894) was Mark Twain's last serious work of fiction, and perhaps his only real novel. Written in a more sombre vein than his other Mississippi writings, it reveals the sinister forces that, towards the end of his life, Mark Twain felt to be threatening the American dream. The central plot revolves around the tragedy of 'Roxy', a mulato slave whose attempt to save her son from his fate succeeds only in destroying him. In spite of...

"The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian-who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray. In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. Pierpont Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books,...

"First published to critical acclaim in 1929, Passing firmly established Nella Larsen's prominence among women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Passing is a story of two women who cross the color line in 1920s New York - together with a new Introduction by the Obie Award-winning playwright and novelist Ntozake Shange." "Irene Redfield, the novel's protagonist, is a woman with an enviable life. She and her husband, Brian, a prominent physician, share...